ALBUM REVIEW: Advent of the Human God – Necronomicon

The Necronomicon is a fictional grimoire appearing in the stories by H. P. Lovecraft. NECRONOMICON is also the name of the Canadian death metal band who have been active since the late 80s and who have recently hit a string of form with records every three years since 2010. With the band beginning to make waves worldwide Advent of the Human God needs to be a hit to let them continue their rise.

The Decent is a rather typical symphonic introduction which lends itself to the word epic and which will no doubt be making an appearance as the bands introduction track in live setting for some time to come. After just over a minute the first real track on the album, Advent of the Human God (The Heart of Darkness) begins. The track blasts along fusing its heavy death metal with continuing symphonic interludes. A solid opener.

The Golden Gods (The Blood of Ages) follows on from this, dropping the overt symphonic sections in favour of a straight up death metal approach. The quality of the riffs and solo’s on the track more than make up for it however. Okkultis Trinity is a short symphonic interlude before Unification of the Four Pillars blasts in. With all of the elements the band uses elsewhere on offer here this is one of the standout tracks. Crown of Thorns is another such track, using all the elements with a powerful and memorable main riff. Both of these tracks would not be out of place on a headliner level band such as VADER’s album.

The Fjord lets the more epic feeling take a backseat and instead focuses its energy into the death metal side of the music to great effect. An eerily quiet symphonic track follows, named Necronomicon. These breaks between the music do not outstay their welcome, which is something that can be said for every track on the album in truth. NECRONOMICON know when to end a track to make it leaving you wanting more.

The ninth track I Bringer of Light is another of the band’s more death metal inclined efforts and suffers from mediocrity partly due to its placement on the album as it is one of the weaker tracks on offer. A cover of CELTIC FROST’s introduction track Innocence and Wrath is somewhat odd but the album ends on a high note with Alchemy of the Avatar which hammers away any remaining doubts that NECRONOMICON are a band to be watched with blastbeats and death growls laid perfectly over keyboards and choirs.

Bands that attempt to have so much going on in their music often struggle to make all of the elements work successfully together. That is certainly not the case here. NECRONOMICON blends all of them together and delivers tracks that flows together and have no parts that feel overblown or unneeded. If the band can continue to deliver at this level in the future, expect them to be going places.